BOLTON 1,500m star Tom Lancashire is out of this month’s World Championships.

The 26-year-old British number one’s season is over due to illness.

Bromley Cross ace Lancashire has been unable to compete all summer since suffering from fatigue during spring training.

He represented Great Britain in the last Olympic Games, World Championships and European Championships, and ran for England at last year’s Commonwealth Games.

But he will miss his first major championships for four years after failing to regain his strength after suffering problems during training in May. He said: “They call it overreaching.

It happens when you’re pushing yourself too hard.

“You don’t know you’re doing it at the time, you just think you’re training hard, but your immune system can’t handle it and your body gets weak.

“I had blood tests and they found signs that I’d had a virus.

But it didn’t show when I’d had it, so we don’t know whether I was training when I had a virus or whether it had nothing to do with it.

“I rested then tried to start training in the hope that I’d be able to do enough to make the trials for the World Championships.

“But even light training was too much.

Then I had the bad news that my season was over.”

Lancashire, who confirmed his position as British number one last August when he ran a personal best time of 3mins 33.96 to become Britain’s 12th fastest 1,500m runner of all time, had to sit and watch his national rivals fight for the three World Championships places at Sunday’s trials in Birmingham.

Now he is setting his sights on preparing for next year’s London Olympics.

“It’s really frustrating to miss the World Championships,” he said. “You don’t get many seasons, and it’s just such a waste.

“I’m taking two weeks off then hopefully return to light training and start building back up for a good winter.”